Relocating- how do we help our children?

[Pebble65]

Hi All.

We’re in the process of moving across the country. We’ve lived in our current house for 6 years and so our eldest, who was 3 remembers the last move, which she found very traumatic (left a best friend at nursery and got bullied at the new nursery incl. child cutting her hair!) but our youngest was only 18 months and so feels like this has been her only home.

We decided 18 months ago that we were moving (some bad experiences here coupled with a cold, drafty house which costs us a fortune still despite an expensive renovation, underperforming primary school, terrible secondary options, few opportunities here for the kids, 4 hours to grandparents who we see twice a year and no family support). All the issues collided and we’d just had enough.

We told the girls and we decided to be quite open with them about the move as our eldest in particular finds change difficult and we wanted to prepare them.

We’ve found a new house in a nice area although it’s missing some of the charm of our current location (despite the issues our current village is beautiful), the schools are excellent and it’s much closer to family. We visited the house last week and the girls were excited and they chose their primary school. I’ve been building Pinterest boards withy hem for their new bedrooms to get them excited.

For context, both girls have had some issues with bullying at school. My eldest was horrendously bullied but a new girl joined the school in September and they’re inseparable now. Our youngest has experienced some low-level bullying at times and is currently being left out by one child in particular.

However, our youngest is becoming very anxious. She’s asking lots of questions like have I moved before and what is it like, what would happen if the removal van doesn’t show up at the new house (Inside Out is to blame for that!), would we be homeless if we sold ours but the owners of the new house changed their mind? I’ve been reassuring her and encouraging her to talk to me but yesterday she told me that she loved her home and she doesn’t want to move.

Our eldest tends to show you what she thinks you want to see so she’s been telling us how much she loves the new house, how the school will be great and everything will be better there. However, she’s occasionally having outbursts and I know she’s devastated to move away from her friend.

I’m feeling a lot of guilt (especially after a school party yesterday where the mums were telling me how upset they are that we’re moving).

It’s not helping that a completion date hasn’t been set yet but the move could be in the next 3 weeks.

Has anyone else done a similar move and how did it go? Is there anything else we can be doing to make this less painful for them?

We kept the talk about the move to a minimum, other than the nice stuff about wallpaper, paint colour,etc, for the new bedroom.
Two weeks after starting the new school, we had a small “party” and invited a few children (chosen by ours) round for a play date. We explained on the invitation that it wasn’t a birthday party so no gifts were necessary & that it was about settling in so parents were welcome to stay too for a drink & a chat. It was all very relaxed and went really well. 15 years on and the children are still good friends with some of their original selection and were good friends with some of the parents.
Good luck!

Moving can be so unsettling for children (we’re a military family so have been in this position a few times).

Ensure to honour their feelings about the move and not sweep them under the carpet, really listen and hear their worries so that they can be addressed and feel supported

we took pictures of them with their important people and promised to find ways to stay in touch, which we worked hard to do. We visited the new area and let them explore highlighting positive new things. They visited their new school and saw their (empty) classrooms so could begin to know more about their new lives. I joined what’s app group for the class and set up play dates before the first school day so they had friends going into it.

it’s hard, really hard for them. Not only making new friends and leaving old ones but different schools use different teaching .tools and both children had to completly relearn phonics in a whole new system which was hard for them.

we made a promise that as soon as their were near secondary school age we wouldnt move again and I’ve kept that promise.

overall, just really listen and support them and don’t minimise it, it’s huge for them.
.